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An introduction to chill-out music

Chill-Out music includes several music genres that range from ambient to lounge, from downtempo to modern classical and from cinematic to deep house. Chill-Out music can be listened to at home or it can be enjoyed at chill-out festivals and concerts. It can also be part of a dance event where you can unwind in a chill-out room. There’s chill-out music where you can dance to, but also beatless adventurous soundscapes which offers a journey through the mind. Several music genres have been combined to form crossover styles like ambient jazz and ambient dub.

Some chill-out music genres, like lounge, follow fairly clear guidelines with regards to rhythm, used instruments and songstructure. Other chill-out genres like ambient often offer a much more free-form approach where the producer can create the atmosphere without being bound to many ‘style rules’. Freedom!

Chill-Out music genres

Examples of chill-out music genres are ambient and its subgenres ambient dub, ambient house, ambient trance, ambient electronica, ambient drone, ambient techno and psybient (combination of psychedelic trance and ambient) and ambient jazz to name a few. Other chill-out music genres include downtempo, lounge, deep house, cinematic, space music, Balearic and modern classical.

And this is just a selection of chill-out music genres.

JOIN the Chill-Out Music Experience

a unique 10-day Chill-Out Music Production workshop in Logic Pro in the ultimate chill-out environment of Andalusia – Spain, featuring Martin “Youth” Glover

Chill-Out music: the origin of ’ambient’ as a music genre

The term ‘ambient’ as a music genre is used for the first time by Brian Eno in 1978 as part of his album ‘Ambient 1: Music for airports’. He mentions in the liner notes that he composed his ambient music (or ‘ambience’) to “accommodate many levels of listening attention without enforcing one in particular; it must be as ignorable as it is interesting”, depending on whether the listener chooses to actively listen to it or not.

1/1 from Ambient 1: Music for airports

In future blogs, I will address specific chill-out genres, significant artists and albums and their role in chill-out music history.

Chill & Enjoy!

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Want to learn how to produce chill-out music in Logic Pro?

JOIN the Chill-Out Music Experience

A unique 10-day Chill-Out Music Production workshop in Logic Pro in the ultimate chill-out environment of Andalusia – Spain, featuring Martin “Youth” Glover.